A Socio-cognition Approach To The Self-representation And Collective Identity Of Older People Based On China Elderly Journal

Population aging in China is accelerating.According to the “Statistical Report of the Sixth Population Census of the People's Republic of China”,by the end of 2010,the proportion of older people aged over 65 years accounted for 8.87% of China's total population.It is estimated that by 2020,the number of older people will increase to 250 million,constituting 17% of the total population in China.The deteriorating population aging undoubtedly poses a challenge to China with far-reaching impact on political,economic,cultural and social development.Aging and ageism have not only received widespread attention from governments at all levels in China,but also aroused intense interest in academic community.As a social organization in modern social life,media has an important influence on the report and description of older people,shaping public perception and views of older people and affecting self-construction of older people's collective identity.Stereotypes significantly influence people's cognitive perception,while the misrepresentations of older people in the media can lead to the negative stereotypes of older people.Regardless of the substantial impact of the rapid spread of digital media,newspapers maintain their position and influence.As a major media,newspaper can help people understand current events,receive information and shape the public's perception.Traditionally,the public generally consider that “old” is always associated with “sickness and disability” and usually tends to treat older people as disadvantaged group in terms of physical and mental qualities.With the continuous development and progress of the society,life quality and economic security of the elderly population have been remarkably improved,and public perception of older people is changing consequently.Therefore,whether the identity of older people has changed,what factors affect the construction of older people's collective identity and how older people represent and construct themselves constitute the present study's focus.Newspaper is one of easily accessible media to reach out to the public and deliver information.China Elderly Journal,the only national comprehensive elderly newspaper,plays a leading role in communicating for Chinese older adults' interest.This journal also provides Chinese older people with opportunity to maintain existing social relationships.In order to fully investigate older people's collective identity,the present study attempts to integrate the socio-cognitive approach to critical discourse study and Koller's collective identity research paradigm by focusing on the self-representation of older people in China Elderly Journal.This research starts with the analysis of language structures at micro level,followed by the discussion of social cognition at meso level and the analysis of social and cultural background at macro level.Specifically,Micro level analysis focuses on the social actor representation and process type to explore what groups and process types are involved when referring to “We” “I”.Combined with context analysis,Meso level analysis discusses how older people employ the overall strategy of the ideological square to achieve positive self-representation and negative other representation,and what ideologies influence older people's mental cognition.Macro level analysis pays close attention to the social context by investigating how sociocultural background may determine the self-representation of the older people's collective identity in newspaper discourses.The results suggest that the self-representation of older people exhibits diverse features and globally shapes their collective identity of optimistic life,strong will to learn,dedication to the course of Communist Party and patriotism.In the process of self-representation,older people manage to adopt the ideological square as an overall strategy by employing lexical choices,semantics move,modality etc.to generate positive self-representation and negative other representation and reveal the influence of the ideology,such as family responsibility,familial affection,egoism on mental cognition.Politics,economy and culture are the leading social factors to determine the self-representation of older people's collective identity in newspaper discourses.